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Blair House: The President’s Guest House, provides a video tour of the rarely-seen historic home used as an official guest residence by U.S. presidents.

In addition to its role as a temporary home for presidents-elect, Blair House has been the “President’s Guest House” since the early 1940s, has housed several foreign heads of state including Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth, Charles de Gaulle, Hamad Karzai, Francois Mitterand, Vaclav Havel, and Boris Yeltsin.

The house was purchased by Francis Prescott Blair in 1837, seven years after he and his family moved to Washington at the request of President Andrew Jackson to start a newspaper favorable to the president’s ideas. With its proximity to the White House, the house was a political and social gathering place especially during the Jackson, Van Buren, and Lincoln administrations. At President Lincoln’s request, Francis Blair and his son Montgomery called Robert E. Lee to the Blair House where they asked him to take command of the Union Army. From 1948 to 1952, President Harry Truman and his family lived in Blair House while the White House was being renovated. It was there that he worked out the Marshall Plan. It was also there on November 1, 1950, that two Puerto Rican Nationalists attempted to assassinate President Truman.

C-SPAN’s program, produced with the cooperation of the U.S. State Department, which oversees Blair House, tells the story of the house and some of its famous inhabitants and rarely-seen areas.

About This Series

The house at 1651 Pennsylvania Avenue has been a neighbor of the White House since 1824 -- and at the center of Washington's political life for just as long. The house stayed in the family of Francis Preston Blair, a member of President Andrew Jackson's "Kitchen Cabinet," until 1942 when wartime demands upon the White House led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to seek housing for visiting foreign dignitaries. The State Department subsequently purchased Blair House. But this role was interrupted from 1948 to 1952 when President Harry Truman moved in along with his family while the White House was being renovated.
Today, Blair House is the president's official guest house, hosting world leaders meeting with the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It also serves as a home for presidents-elect in the days before the inauguration as well as a respite for former first families during state funerals.